Rants on eBay and Paypal problems.

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hammr7
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Rants on eBay and Paypal problems.

Post by hammr7 » Fri Apr 16, 2004 5:17 am

A NEW EBAY SCAM

There were a number of eBay auctions last week for 10,000 rares and some Beta cards (a few said a Beta set).  While the auctions were from a number of different eBay sellers, they all traced back to a single person who had somehow contracted out with a bunch of eBay members as resellers.

While the above auctions were easy to spot, this is apparantly the latest thing in eBay scams.  Many eBay sellers will either sell their accounts, or are willing to sell on consignment without having the items or even having a clue about what they are selling.  It's perfect from the scammer, who gets money forwarded from the "stooge" eBay account (the seller), then leaves that account holder to deal with the consequences when the listed goods aren't shipped.  

PAYPAL PROBLEM

The scam above, or any eBay scam, can be a horror for an unsuspecting buyer who uses Paypal with direct cash payments (either from a bank account or a balance in their Paypal account).  The problem is that if the scammer sends you anything then Paypal won't help at all.  They will work to refund your money if you never got anything, or if you were able to purchase their additional insurance, but otherwise don't want to "get in the middle" if you claim what you received isn't what was listed.

I've already had three situations that show the magnitude of this problem:

1.  Seller offered Mint AN City of Brass, and included a photo of the Black-bordered English version.  I received a Near Mint Chronicles version.

2.  Seller offered collection of 5,000 Near Mint Uncommons, then sent about 2,800 uncommons, most in "played" condition.

3.  Seller offered a collection including 600 old rares, and confirmed that all were true rares and not U1s.  Collection arrived with the 20 rares seller had listed as a "sampling", but with no other rares.

In each case Paypal said, in effect, that it wasn't their problem.  Since the seller had sent me something, I couldn't complain.  Apparantly, if a seller sent me a single baseball card, and had proof of delivery, that would be enough to get Paypal off the hook.

I'm supposed to work with the sellers for 30 days and then complain to eBay if things don't work out.  But when sellers won't respond to e-mails or phone calls, and when the loss is less than $25 or more than $200,  I'm apparantly out of luck.  

I was able to finally collect on items 2 and 3 through my credit card company.  (Item 1 just happened, but I don't hold out much hope, since I had a Paypal balance to cover it).  Based upon my experiences, I highly recommend that anyone who uses Paypal should make sure they only pay via a credit card that has good Internet fraud coverage.  Anyone who normally sells on eBay should make sure they transfer out any positive balance before winning an auction where they have concerns (since that money is used first to fund purchases).  
Where have all the Magic sticker sets gone?

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misterpid
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Re: Rants on eBay and Paypal problems.

Post by misterpid » Fri Apr 16, 2004 4:46 pm

Both eBay and PayPal (which is owned by eBay) try to downplay the amount of fraud that goes on.  EBay should make it mandatory that all users read through the "Trust & Safety" discussion board.  I have found that it's the best resource on eBay.  

Most of the posters giving advice there are sellers who have been using eBay for many years.  To protect their selling accounts, they use a different ID for posting on the message boards.  Since these IDs aren't used for buying or selling, they have 0 feedback.  EBay just aenacted a new rule that 0 feedback IDs can't post more than 10 messages per day on the message boards - effectively silencing most of the people who gave out the kind of help that is almost impossible to get from eBay staff.

However, ther are a few things that poeple should know.

1)  Both eBay and Paypal will only take action on what can be proved - not just one person's word over another's.  That is why if a seller sends you an empty box, Paypal won't do anything - at that point it's the buyer's word against the seller's as to what was in the box.

2) Always pay with a credit card when using Paypal.  It is the ONLY way that they can guarantee a refund if there is a problem.  Paypal has noticed that a lot of people know this and give out this same advice.  To counter act all of the refunds they have to do, they run a contest that you enter by using your bank account or your Paypal balance to make payments - they are really trying to discourage people from paying with credit cards.

3)  If there is a problem with Paypal, you have 30 day (to the second) from the time of payment to start an inquiry into the situation.  After 30 days, they won't help you.

4)  Ask as many questions of the seller as you can BEFORE bidding on an item.  Bidding means that you agree to whatever is written in the auction description (unless its illegal or breaks an eBay or Paypal policy).  Also, eBay considers e-mail replies from the seller as part of the auction description, and will hold the seller to whatever is asaid in e-mails.  I was looking at an auction a month or so ago where the guy was selling his collection he mentioned that some of his favorite cards were Workshop, Mana Drain, WOG, BOP...  I asked him how many of those were included in the collection - he said none.  I asked what cards were included, and he wouldn't tell me, he would just say what the book value was.  I contacted the guy that won the auction, he said that the best card in the collection was a Royal Assasin.  He paid about $400 for a box of worthless cards.

5)  The most important rule

IF SOMETHING LOOKS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT USUALY IS.



I started reading the T&S board about a year ago, and I can't stress enough that its the best resource on eBay.  Everyone who uses eBay really should check it out just to know how to protect themselves in case anything problems do arise.

Stu
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Legends Presence of the Master (English or Italian)
Dark Sorrow's Path (English or Italian)
Non-English Contract From Below.

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mintcollector
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Re: Rants on eBay and Paypal problems.

Post by mintcollector » Fri Apr 16, 2004 7:36 pm

This is why I typically only will deal with sellers who have decent, established feedback.  If negatives are involved with ANY seller, I take care to review what transpired as a result.  Many times negative feedback is left from a zero or low feedback buyer for usually stupid reasons.  I typically use the thumb rule that if an auction exceed $20, I won't buy from very low feedback sellers.  I know this means I may be missing out on possibly good deals, but it has kept my incidence level extremely low.  If an auction exceeds $50, I insist on insurance being involved for both buyer and seller protection.  I have only had one eBay incidence ever where the seller never replied after 3 months of many inquiry emails followed by a final one stating I have no other choice but to leave him negative feedback, had cashed my check (these were the days before PayPal), and never sent the card.  I have had only one major incident with PayPal ever.  I had been approached by an overseas seller stating he could not recent payments via PayPal.  He offered me 10% of any monies transfered.  I carefully review all of PayPal's policies at the time and found some interesting loopholes at the time that would have made PayPal responsible for any problems (which I don't want to get into here as I could right a book of the specifics).  Lo' and behold monies started coming in.  I sat on the money for a couple days and then after no problems, went ahead and transfered the money out, keeping my 10% and getting the money to the seller via other means.  Shortly after that I am contacting by PayPal stating that stolen credit cards were used to transfer money to my account and as a result my account was frozen.  They of course demanded the money to be returned.  Also they promptly changed their usage polices to further protect themselves from any liability.  After a long argument with PayPal's Fraud dept and deciding whether to pursue fighting them as the policy they had at the time of the incident made them accountable for the problem and not me, but I decided it wasn't worth the fight and hassle I would need to go through and decided to swallow the loss and return money as I had received a verbal confirmation from the Fraud officer I was dealing with that my account would be reinstated.  After they received the money returned, I waited for a couple days and nothing.  I kept calling the officer and he was never available.  I sent him a letter of complaint stating that I had done what they wanted and now I wanted my account re-enabled.  I finally got a return email from PayPal quoting their new policy and telling me that my account would be suspended indefinitely.  Oh was I livid!!!!  I decided to play ball with them and not fight them when I know I could have won and they screwed me over anyways!!!  So as a result I went into my system registry, removed all PayPal components, resigned up with PayPal using my HotMail account and this is what I use to this day.  My old account still exists, but is still suspended.  This was about 3-4 years ago that this happened.  So in summary PayPal offers the ability to send and receive money, but is very hands-off for any liability on their part in the transaction, so be careful everyone, especially if you are unfortunate to ever be paid with a stolen credit card, you may end up in a big mess like I was.  This is why many sellers do not take credit card payments via PayPal now due to this horrid policy.  

I learned this lesson the very HARD way.

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misterpid
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Re: Rants on eBay and Paypal problems.

Post by misterpid » Fri Apr 16, 2004 8:07 pm

Never accept off-eBay offers of any kind.  Whether it's someone offering to sell you something, or someone offering to buy from you.  People offering to sell stuff will normally just steal the money.  People offering to buy normally use a stolen credit card or a fake check.

There are a lot of cases of people offering to pay thousands of dollars over the price of an item - if the seller will send the difference (minus a little somehing for the seller) back via Western Union, usually overseas.  After the WU is sent the seller finds out that the check was fake and they have no way of getting back the money from WU, they are out the item and the money.  

Other people have been through exactly what Mintcollector went through.

Unfortunately, eBay is not doing enough to keep people from doing any of this.  They just try to stop the ones that get reported to them.

This doesn't even get into the topic of shill bidding, which eBay does nothing at all to stop.  They make too much money off of people bidding up the prices on their own auctions to put a stop to it.

Stu
Always looking for:
Legends Presence of the Master (English or Italian)
Dark Sorrow's Path (English or Italian)
Non-English Contract From Below.

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